Nexus for the musical endeavors of John Beauchamp

Time for a Change

04/10/2012

No I don’t know what needs to change but its time for something to change. I’ve gotten lazy and uninspired. None of my music assignments are finished for other people which is pretty horrific for me. I mean if I have any actual dream of writing music professionally through commissions I have to be able to write this stuff out on command.

I also need to start participating in more life things. I do have a passion for videogames and heroclix but I really can’t afford to buy a new game even monthly and I certainly can’t afford to buy a brick of every new heroclix set. Heroclix is at least a social hobby for me. Videogames are not. I realize there’s a lot of big fans of multiplayer but competitive gameplay is just a waste of time for me. It requires me to build a skill which takes the time of learning, say, a new instrument. If a competitive Halo player spent as much time and passion as they did playing Halo as learning an instrument they would at least be able to play on the level of a virtuoso. Maybe not improvise, but definitely play.

Gaming for me is something to do to relax, have fun, and hopefully get a good story out of.

Point being, I need inspiration. I need something in my life so that I can write the fun music that these jobs I have require. I think I’ll start jogging again. That always helped me write new stuff. I also need to find some new interesting music that connects with me that’s not sad. I also need to start learning other people’s music again. Well that’s not entirely true as I have been learning “I Was Lost Without You” from Mass Effect 3 which is a beautiful track. Man I wish I could afford piano lessons.

There is a dirty secret about lessons. Teacher’s are a wonderful shortcut to learning things and a good teacher will teach you to think on that instrument for yourself. But the thing of it is, the teacher is really just an arrow. A person to bounce questions off of. Everything a person needs to learn an instrument is readily available to them through the internet and learning to play books. Some techniques are harder to learn from a book, particularly in the flamenco vein, but sometimes you just have to stand up and walk through the door yourself.